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Episode 93: Zandalee featuring Mack Eochada
71 Plays1 month ago
Discord Dawg Mack Eochada sits down with us and they’ve brought their horny friend, Zandalee (1987). This erotic drama combines the raw sexual energy of Judge Reinhold, Nicholas Cage and Erika Anderson along with his production chops, his acting skills and her body, respectively. It’s weird, not sexy, but absolutely sexual and follows a relatively basic story arc: One is impotent, the other is spilling out sexuality and the last one is a female in a film, so pretty basic stuff. Somehow, it’s not really like anything else, which is probably for the best. Also, Nicholas Cage is really not phoning it in, he’s metaphorically swallowed the phone and he’s literally tearing through the scenery. It’s great? Tune in to find out!
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose
00:00:27
Speaker
That you would, if you could And you know that you should Yes, you know that you should Be good Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast.
00:00:45
Speaker
It's the only podcast that's brave enough to ask the question, if this movie's so bad, why do you like it so much? We're your hosts. I am, of course...
00:00:57
Speaker
also poetry, and I'm Chris Anderson. And with me, i have, of course, you might say he's a character unto himself, the veritable Big Easy of the show. It's Mr. Greg Bossy. I've never been referred to as an entire city, and I like it. How are you, Chris?
00:01:19
Speaker
Good, and I like the nickname for you, Big Easy. Yeah, that's really good. That really suits you in a way, that i think. Here comes Big Easy. Hey, Big Easy.
00:01:31
Speaker
And of course, we have the person with whom I have a psychosexual obsession that will never release. It's my wonderful wife, Anna Anderson.
00:01:45
Speaker
Hey, baby. How are you doing, my heart? I'm doing great. Well, I'm glad to hear it.
Guest Introduction: Mac Yoshida
00:01:54
Speaker
And of course, we wouldn't have a show if we didn't have a very special guest. You might know him as one of our Discord dogs. It's Mac Yoshida. How are you doing, Mac?
00:02:05
Speaker
I am very good, and I'm excited to be here so that we can pursue the many questions I have about the movie Zandily. Yes, it is It's an odd duck. That is for sure Yeah. and i I think I've uncovered some answers and I'm excited to get to them. But listeners, if you haven't seen Zandily and you would remember, here's just a brief summary of the film to hold in your mind.
Discussion of 'Zandily' Film Themes
00:02:46
Speaker
Down in the Big Easy, there lives failed poet named Thierry who suffers from erectile dysfunction. And it never occurs to him that his beautiful wife, Zandily, might at least appreciate getting her pussy eaten now and then. When Thierry reunites with his childhood friend, Johnny, Johnny turns out to be the horniest man who ever lived.
00:03:09
Speaker
And then that becomes a whole big thing.
00:03:14
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Nailed it. I feel like that's pretty much the plot of Xander League. Yeah. Yeah. so You really, you really, you summed it up. Not a ton of plot, which is why. No.
00:03:27
Speaker
You have to take a very, yeah very dialectic approach to this movie because it will present you with questions and sex scenes and not lot. Right. Yes. Yeah. Well, luckily, those are two things that I love in a movie. Yeah. But I had not seen Zandali before. And Mac, when we were talking about you coming on the show, you produced a very good list of lots of excellent films. And I skipped all of them for the only one that I had never heard of.
00:03:55
Speaker
Tell me about your background with Zandali. Right. And that's... That's interesting. So when ah you said, when when we discussed maybe me coming on the podcast, I, because of my mind problems, wrote out a list, probably 40 movies on it. And I said, was thorough. because um And so I said, let's enter into you know the spirit of the game. This is a bad movie podcast. So I knocked off you know everything, you know no secret successes, which is weird because I think we all know Nathan Rabin. on his famous flop scale. He did rate this a secret success. i don't agree with that. No, I, yeah, I read that review and I saw that rating and yeah, I also don't know that I quite agree. Wow. Interesting.
Personal Perspectives on 'Zandily'
00:04:46
Speaker
I mean, I guess depends on what merits you would call something a success. It might succeed on its own terms. They're very strange terms. Yeah, i don't think so.
00:04:56
Speaker
I mean, in the terms that if I was 13 years old, i could jack off to the first 20 minutes. I think those are the terms that it could be. So that's something.
00:05:08
Speaker
That's the purpose of this movie. If I had made one more cut, I probably would have lost Zandalee because it covers the same ground as another movie that was on this list, which is odd Angel Heart, right? God.
00:05:24
Speaker
From like my late teens to my early forties, I lived in New Orleans. Okay. Both movies that shaped, you know, they're similar movies. They were both. Well, if anyone had watched Zander Lee, there would have been controversial sex. the They were both movies that present New Orleans as this loose, sensual, erotic, exotic, wonderland,
00:05:50
Speaker
the that Yeah. It's also a city where people live and work. Yeah. Right. right Right. So, uh, yeah, that is, that is where Zandale came from for me, but I agree. i agree, Chris.
00:06:05
Speaker
the absolute reason i saw this in the early 90s was because it was on cable and i was looking for a movie movie with naked people in it right that is yeah why i watched this movie yeah and judged solely against that rubric i mean if i was programming 90s cable channel in the mid ninety s i'm looking for something that fulfills this criteria yeah Anna, had you seen Zandalee before? It does have. I will say Zandalee has enough nudity that it it actually felt gratuitous to me. I'm not like it takes a lot of nudity to feel gratuitous to me. Like i'm a big yeah fan of casual nudity in movies, but this was this was kind of pushing it. I know I had neither seen nor heard of Zandalee.
00:06:54
Speaker
How about you, Greg? So i have I have seen one scene from Xandalee before this. I'm curious if anybody can guess what it is. Okay, on the count of three, let's all say our guesses. one two, three. The scene where Nicolas Cage comes up in black paint and starts screaming.
00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's the one. ah So alamo would show Alamo would show like bad movies. You know, we'd get together. it's I saw Xanadu there. Highly recommended if you can see Xanadu in a theater with a group of people. ah And before they would do shows of that nature, they would show clips from other films, which is how Matt and I were like, we should watch the sequel to Scanners. Because you'd be like, what is this?
00:07:42
Speaker
ah And so one of them was just this scene from Zandley. And I was just like, what in God's name is even happening in this? But I could never remember what the movie was. I don't know if they tell you. But also I recognize that if they did tell you, it just says Zandley.
Memorable Scenes and Production Insights
00:07:56
Speaker
And how are you going to remember that? It's nonsense.
00:07:59
Speaker
Like if you don't understand it's a name, it's like you might as well be called dipiluf. It's like, I don't know what that means. ah It's just three phonemes. Yeah, exactly. And so like, as I was doing research for this, I don't do a lot of research. I should go in blind, but I like to have some concept of what's going on.
00:08:16
Speaker
ah And so like, I got to like Reddit or something and someone's like, Oh, that's the one with the paint scene. And I was like, Oh, Oh wait, is that this movie? And and so then I got very excited and was pretty let down.
00:08:30
Speaker
ah for the most part, it's certainly an interesting piece of work. Yeah. Yeah. Unique. Yeah. That's not a compliment. That's not a compliment.
00:08:44
Speaker
herenet Well, do you guys want to hear the context research I put into Zandalee? Yeah, sure. Fascinated. almost Okay. Then let's play that bumper.
00:09:09
Speaker
What's going on on screen? I want to hear some details. Gossips tend to all that shit. Can't imagine all the time.
00:09:34
Speaker
So Zander Lee came out July 18th, 1991 is directed by a guy whose real name is Sam Pillsbury. I know that sounds like a fake name that you'd give yourself when you're directing a soft poor porno, but that's his real government name.
00:09:51
Speaker
No taglines. Don't need them. I didn't get a lot of distribution. Can anybody come up with the tagline? I got one.
00:10:03
Speaker
Yeah. Go for it. Zandali, say her name. Ooh. Sure, that's pretty good. i was going to mention I was going to mention something about a storm blowing in. Not that that happens, but that seems very Nolens, at least, you know? Yeah, yeah.
00:10:21
Speaker
The pronunciation of Zandali is all over the place. Yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So Sam Pillsbury was born right here in the good old US of A, I believe in Waterbury, Connecticut, but he moved to New Zealand at the age of 14. This is our second film directed by someone who has emigrated to New Zealand.
00:10:42
Speaker
What was the film? Dante's Peak.
Nicolas Cage's Acting Style
00:10:45
Speaker
Ah. Yeah. Fascinating. Yeah. At 23, he started working for the National Film Unit, which was a film studio owned by the government.
00:10:57
Speaker
It was privatized in 1991. Ooh, capitalism. Yeah. Yeah, everybody who worked for them was incredibly pissed off. In 1981, Pillsbury directed his first feature, The Scarecrow, a horror film set in the fifty s starring John Carradine. That was the first movie of...
00:11:19
Speaker
I think I heard of that one. it's i that is It's good. It's all bad. I mean, it's a competent, you know, sort of B-level, you know, early 80s horror movie. I guarantee it won't be the worst horror movie I've ever seen. I'll i'll tell you that right now. I'll put it on the plex.
00:11:38
Speaker
It was the first New Zealand film to be accepted at the Cannes Film Festival, although it was not competing, but it was at least screened there. ah He did then a smattering of TV work in New Zealand in the 80s, but realized that he would have to go to the States if he wanted to make it big.
00:11:59
Speaker
So in 1991, he directed Zandily. ah But he was only able to find direct-to-VHS distribution, and it was widely dismissed by critics.
00:12:12
Speaker
yeah I think he never directed a theatrical release again. It looked like all TV after that. Yeah, I think maybe Free Willy 3 went to the big screen. He did direct Free Willy 3. Okay.
00:12:27
Speaker
okay ah But yeah, this film sent Pillsbury down to the minor league of made for TV movies for the better part of the 90s before he directed Where the Red Fern Grows, starring Dabney Coleman and Dave Matthews, before then he decided to return to New Zealand.
00:12:43
Speaker
What? Yeah, he and he directed Where it read the word where the Red kind of that. Dabney Coleman and Dave Matthews. I love Dabney Coleman, and I'm always intrigued when Dave Matthews does things that aren't music, like make wine.
00:13:00
Speaker
Yeah, they're, ah you know, the sort of ah prior and wilder of their generation. Definitely. Just classic on-screen duo. Definitely. Coleman and Matthews. That's right.
00:13:14
Speaker
So while Pillsbury did direct Zandily, oh, and I think I also should mention, I noticed during the opening credits that Judge Reinhold was a producer on this. Yes. Yeah. That explains a lot, I think. Yes. I really think it does.
00:13:29
Speaker
Judge Reinhold does seem to be, don't know if he's miscast or his part is miswritten. Something is wrong here. And Judge Reinhold is right in the center of it. Yes. so much Yes.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yes. And I love Judge Reinhold. Yeah, i've got no I've got nothing. charismatic man. Yeah. But that also, I think, explains why Zach Galligan is a small role. I believe they became friends on Gremlins.
00:13:55
Speaker
Oh, shit. you So he's like, yeah, we'll get my buddy Zach Galligan in here to play the art dealer. I'm wondering if there was a preexisting relationship cage and a Reinhold were in pastimes, right?
00:14:06
Speaker
That's true. They wouldn't have met each other then. So yeah, it's all making sense. ah I think we could argue that sort of the primary author of the experience of watching Xanderly though, is not Pillsbury or Reinhold.
00:14:25
Speaker
I think that responsibility falls squarely on Nicholas Cage. Yeah. that's Yes. That's what we're here for. yeah Yes. Yes. think does not It definitely does not fall on poor Erica Anderson as Zandalee.
00:14:39
Speaker
No. And I think even if you had like a James Spader in the Johnny role, you probably would forget about Zandalee. Do you know what i mean? Yeah. I mean, I would love to see James Spader in Zandalee. Don't get me wrong.
00:14:53
Speaker
actually There might have actually been chemistry, which is... yeah That would be something, right? From this movie. Like, you could at least try to take it seriously.
00:15:04
Speaker
Unless they gave him the same facial hair and haircut. Ooh, that's gotta to be raised, man. now i want to photoshop the mustache and goatee onto james spader i'll see if i can see that later i love it strings of hair hanging over the face yeah like a like a misfits deadlock to me he mostly looked like v from v from vendetta yeah yeah
00:15:37
Speaker
Yeah. Right down to the hair. Except that's a mask and he's acting with his eyes. Yes. That's almost impossible to stand. He's acting with everything. So let's talk about Nicholas Cage.
00:15:50
Speaker
Cage is part of the extended Coppola family, Hollywood royalty. That includes obviously Francis Ford Coppola, Talia Shire, Sophia Coppola, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman,
00:16:07
Speaker
Carmine Coppola. No problem. ah Between them, they've racked up 24 Oscar nominations and eight wins. That's a lot for one family. Yeah. So Cage broke out with his first leading role in 1983's Valley Girl. Y'all like Valley Girl?
00:16:25
Speaker
Never seen it. No, me either. It's worth watching and he's very good in it. It's very romantic. Yeah. He began his career as sort of ah a smoldering, sensitive method actor, sort of a Marlon Brando for the 80s, one might say.
00:16:42
Speaker
But then in 1989, he decided to mix it up for the role of Peter Lowe in the movie Vampire's Kiss. Which is a movie I need to see. Never seen, but I really need to see it. Yeah.
00:16:56
Speaker
On my list. That's a must list if you're a ah cageist. I love vampires and cage, so... And this was the film where he developed his own new acting style, which he calls nouveau shamanic.
00:17:14
Speaker
Yes. I like this. Yes. He evolved out of method acting into something that he describes as nouveau shamanic acting. Cage was able to explore and develop this nouveau shamanic acting style with a wide array of directors throughout the next decade. People like Barbette Schroeder, Mike Figgis, Michael Bay, John Woo, Brian De Palma, Joel Schumacher, Martin Scorsese, and David Lynch, which...
00:17:46
Speaker
It's fascinating. If 89 is the switch, then next year he made Wild at Heart, which is a movie we've got to talk about in comparison with this movie. Yes. I feel like those two characters have a lot of overlap.
00:18:00
Speaker
They do. They do. Except that Wild at Heart is an incredibly romantic movie and Zanderly is not. And sexy. And it's so fascinating to see Cage...
00:18:13
Speaker
ah ah Yeah, it it it tells you a lot about what directing is and chemistry and yeah. Yeah, I might be jumping ahead here, but it's like these Wild at Heart and this movie are basically a year apart, almost exactly. And it's like, how much sexier are the sex scenes in Wild at Heart?
00:18:34
Speaker
Like, it's a factor of thousands. like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this anyway, we'll get to the sex scenes. ah But the run that he had of The Rock in 1996, followed by Con Air and Face Off in 1997, made him an icon to young action film fans of the ninety s and ah seeing him develop into America's premier weirdo actor as he continued to explore nouveau shamanic acting into the new millennium has made him sort of the occult figure say. Do we know what the theory or thesis is about nouveau shamanic?
00:19:16
Speaker
I remember he took inspiration from observing animals. He has pet cobras. He draws a lot of information from them. They try to hypnotize him, I hear. Okay. Okay.
00:19:29
Speaker
I mean, it's obvious. it's It's like pornography, right? Like you can tell what it is when you're watching it, but it's very hard to define. Well, ah here's what he has to say about it in his own words.
00:19:43
Speaker
The process itself is about how do you augment your imagination in a healthy way so that you can believe you're these characters? You don't feel like you're acting.
00:19:55
Speaker
You feel like you're being.
00:19:59
Speaker
Okay. Sure. Yeah, no, I can see that. I can see that. yeah it it seems to be very much in the moment. I imagine you very rarely get two takes that are exactly the same on a Nick Cage film.
00:20:13
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. But I think it explains how he, to the extent that he does, sells the appallingly bad dialogue in this movie. Yes, so bad.
00:20:24
Speaker
No, he he is not phoning it in in this one. If you like to see Nicolas Cage go very big doing some very silly stuff, this movie 100% delivers.
00:20:35
Speaker
yes Now, unfortunately for Nick Cage, ah he also spent a lot of money. ah He bought at least two castles, nine Rolls Royce, at least seven other properties. He said he got bad business advice.
00:20:54
Speaker
ah I would have advised him not to buy a dinosaur skull that he had to repatriate to Mongolia. wow He has a, he has a tomb on millionaire's row in Lake Laumetri, which is the, uh, the famous cemetery of, of new Orleans.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yes. He once owned Madam Lallory's house in new Orleans. He had to sell, I believe he sold it off at some point. Got to do what you got to do. Sometimes you got to sell the, the, the 10th house.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, and this is also why he is in so many movies. Uh, you In many ways, it was a gift to us all. It's true.
00:21:37
Speaker
One man's crisis is an audience's opportunity. That's right. Indeed, his rate of making films increased at ah astronomically. ah in the nineteen ninety s he made movies. In the 2010s, made 41.
00:21:51
Speaker
in the 2020s, has made 18. in the twenty ten s he made forty one o so far in the twenty twenty s he has made eighteen Wow. He's gangbus he's working.
00:22:07
Speaker
Give him that. And I just, I have one more quote about nouveau shamanic acting in regards to what it looks like. Here's a quote from Luke Buckmaster of the guardian. He put it this way in cages, hands cartoonish moments are imbued with real emotion and real emotions become cartoons. So,
00:22:29
Speaker
Everything from individual scenes down to single lines of dialogue feel like they have been embraced as opportunities for creation. Cage is usually interesting even when his films are not.
00:22:41
Speaker
He is erratic and unpredictable. He is captivating and he is capricious. He is a performer. He is a troubadour. He is a jazz musician. Yes.
00:22:53
Speaker
That sounds like dialogue from Xandalei. I think he is a truly singular artist. Yeah, yeah. And as a singular artist, you know, does, you know, turn in some absolutely bizarre performances sometimes. but They're always memorable, and I can't ever say I feel like there are people who don't like what he does, but I feel like it's hard to say that what he's doing is bad.
00:23:21
Speaker
Yeah, he's the finest actor in the finest actor who we have who performs in the worst movies. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. and And he never phones it in.
00:23:32
Speaker
i mean He's always making choices that surprise you. Nothing but love in Nicolas Cage. Other erotic thrillers of 1991.
00:23:46
Speaker
It was a very early time in the genre. It wasn't fully developed yet. Right. This leads to, this is, we got to talk about this because whether this is like an eighties or nineties movie, like it's, it's in this interesting pocket, right? Because it came out before Basic Instinct, which like, I think would have sold this movie.
00:24:07
Speaker
Right. Right. Yeah, I think that yeah would have definitely wet the public's appetite much more for erotic thrillers compared to, say, Sleeping with the Enemy.
Genre Evolution: Erotic Thrillers
00:24:17
Speaker
oh yeah. And from here, they get more obscure. A Kiss Before Dying. Okay, I remember that because of that title. Yeah. Liquid Dreams.
00:24:31
Speaker
Can't call them Wet Dreams, I suppose. ah Colonel Crimes. Wow. The Indecent Woman. Oh.
00:24:43
Speaker
Wild Orchid 2. Two Shades of Blue.
00:24:49
Speaker
Well, I've probably seen that for the same reason I've seen this one. yeah I imagine that's 90% of its audience. Last but not least, Horror.
00:25:00
Speaker
Oh dear! W-H-O-R-E? That's the one. yeah That's Teresa Russell. that's ah that's ah That's a British guy who directed Tommy. Why am I blanking on his name?
00:25:12
Speaker
Ken Russell? Yes, that's Ken Russell. ah Oh, really? Okay. bet you wish you weren't so dismissive about War, don't you?
00:25:23
Speaker
No, it's meant to be serious-minded. It's meant to be, you know... Okay. It's just an inside look at the life.
00:25:32
Speaker
Well, you guys want to talk about the plot of Zandily? Yeah, let's do it Yeah, let's let's let's go for it. Listeners, this one's going to get a little blue.
00:25:42
Speaker
Mmm...
00:26:00
Speaker
Plot bumper, listen to me. I'm gonna give you the plot summary. Come on, baby. Here's the synopsis.
00:26:12
Speaker
Plot bumper, plot bumper.
00:26:24
Speaker
it's like It's like Johnny and June Carter, man. you can You can tell you guys are in love from the beauty of the harmonies. Well, thank you, Mac. Well, yeah, I'm just going to say really quick, if, say, any of my family is listening to this, and you don't want to hear me talk about graphic sex stuff, maybe skip to a different episode.
00:26:46
Speaker
ah So we open on jazz music. and white on black credits that last surprisingly long.
00:26:56
Speaker
I do want to say that this is really is really weird music. It's like accordion or zither or something. It's weird. Cajun accordion. It's a specific kind of a accordion. yeah but The music is by Pray for Rain, which was a band in the 80s. It kind of became ah just kind of like Tangerine Dream. It became a thing that does soundtracks. And they did a lot of soundtracks. Like they did another movie that I suggested, a favorite of mine, Straight to Hell. Like a lot of Alex Cox, lot of vaguely tangerine, dreamy synth, but also like traditional music forms like Cajun music or country or Western type of things. Okay.
00:27:38
Speaker
Yeah. And Zydeco is like sort of accordion stomp clap type of music. I'm actually going to have our outgoing song this week is La Cher Tout Tout, which is Zydeco track.
00:27:51
Speaker
Well, actually. Oh, I'm going well, actually, you. Because Zydeco and Cajun are different genres. And it's hard to tell. Yes, and this is Delso. I am no expert. Because I famously hate and disrespect all forms of jazz.
00:28:06
Speaker
Real shame. Real shame. I do kind of like Zydeco. Zydeco has a certain charm for me I can't put my finger on. I wish I knew more about Zydeco. So in any case, but we fade in on the French Quarter of Nalens.
00:28:21
Speaker
It's a long crane shot reminiscent of the opening of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil. Real classy stuff. Yeah. Real bravura filmmaking. And it shows the beauty and danger of the big easy. Well, yeah, I mean, why I chose this, right, is you're looking up Royal Street there. If you'd been able to see sort of down the perspective, you would have seen where my first job was after I graduated from college. And then went skycri is one of the skyscrapers you see in the background is where I had my last job before I left the city. So ah sunrise, sunset. This one shot is ah encompassing my whole sort of life down there. Yeah, that's pretty neat.
00:29:00
Speaker
Yeah. ah but we see like a drug handoff and we see people wandering the streets before we crane up to a second story balcony where a beautiful woman is watering her plants. It's Zandily played by Erica Anderson, perhaps best known for being the third person killed in nightmare on Elm street five.
00:29:22
Speaker
Okay. She's also Emerald and Jade in the, uh, the soap opera within twin peaks, uh, well, of, yeah the other twin peaks There are two Twin Peaks alums in this.
00:29:35
Speaker
Nice. Interesting. So she comes inside and she starts dancing around completely nude. Five minutes in, we've got full frontal nudity in this film. Fantastic.
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah. Meanwhile, her husband, Tiri, played by Judge Reinhold with a very straight, flat, wide mustache. That looks so stupid. It looks so stupid.
00:30:00
Speaker
It's a really bad mustache. Yeah. And he's got an accent. It's bad. We got to talk about the accents. I got a whole, I have strong opinions about New Orleans accents. and Well, no, he does say that he's from Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge. You're correct. But that only means he's kind of half-assing a New Orleans accent.
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah, and someone was credited as a dialogue coach on the movie. I saw a dialogue coach for Mr. Reinhold in there, and was like, geez, Louise.
00:30:32
Speaker
Should have told him to do the accent accent all the time. Yeah, for the rest of his life. The one person who really hits it is Buscemi. Buscemi does a very good new Orleans accent in this. Okay.
00:30:43
Speaker
He hasn't shown up, so he's about to. So ah she's completely nude. Terry wanders out of the bathroom and the two of them recite a poem and dance together. But then Terry pulls away, afraid of further intimacy.
00:30:57
Speaker
Instead, he gets dressed and puts on a fez and leaves. He has a bachelor party to attend. During the daytime. Yeah. Well, you know, New Orleans, it's a 24 hour bachelor party everywhere you go.
00:31:11
Speaker
No, no. So ah the bachelor party seems like a fun time, though Terry seems uncomfortable around the strippers.
00:31:23
Speaker
But the whole temperature of the room is about to change because Nicolas Cage is about to be in this movie. Yes. Enter Johnny in silhouette, whipping his hair around.
00:31:37
Speaker
Fantastic entrance. So good. It's so good.
00:31:42
Speaker
Johnny has two defining characteristics. One, he has the facial hair and haircut of V for Vendetta. And two, he is so horny that he's incapable of rational thought or action.
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah. That's all you really need to know about John. He is wearing the most architectural hat. late 80s, early 90s jacket. All of the jackets in this movie look like people are ready to like be put in as line as linebackers for the Saints.
00:32:13
Speaker
Like huge V-shaped shoulder pad jackets. yeah But of course, Terry, he wears a lot of linen, which is very soft and limp.
00:32:24
Speaker
Classic Terry. ye yep they's so there's They're trying to say something and I'm not getting it Don't worry. Everything in this film will become incredibly obvious.
00:32:39
Speaker
ah Terry recognizes Johnny. They were childhood friends back in Baton Rouge. ah Terry is so excited to see his childhood friend that he decides to take his insanely lustful chum home to surprise his aging mother and sexually frustrated nubile wife.
00:32:59
Speaker
I love that he's surprising the mother. like He walks on room is like, you're never going to guess who's here. It's like that guy that you had a friendship with that you haven't seen in a while who is really sexual.
00:33:10
Speaker
That guy. That guy's back. I'm sure she's really excited about it. yeah Oh, it's your shittiest friend. The guy that I hated when you were 14. There's no way he didn't hit on her like 20 years earlier. and yeah know call Oh my God.
00:33:24
Speaker
Milfy. cause She's a lovely lady. She's like like a I'm not sure where she came from. I think she's Polish or something. She's definitely one of the more charming characters in the film. One of the few people that comes out of this not looking like a maniac or a loser. She also seems very like normal and understandable.
00:33:43
Speaker
Yes. She also yeah seems like a human being. She seems rational in some way. Normal, maybe. I wrote it down somewhere. i can't remember the grandmother's name, but anyway. I thought her name was mother Tata, played by Vivica Lindfors.
00:33:57
Speaker
I love the names they give to to grandparents in anything, because it's just like, if you hear like Beepo, that means one of their grandparents. i don't know what it means and where it comes from. that's ah It's like, it's toot toot.
00:34:08
Speaker
Okay, great. Yeah, that's why I always love calling grandma characters Gam Gam on the show. Yeah. ah But ah we have got to talk about the hair. Nick Cage can be a very handsome man, right?
00:34:23
Speaker
He absolutely can. Very soulful, beautiful eyes. He looks like Yaramir Yager in this movie. He has got the worst mullet, the most bizarre architectural mullet that comes in sort of in the middle part of his head and then extends out again like a wasted dress. Yeah. And that tiny little goatee, just that little slash going down the of his Yeah, just the same line from the soul patch. I never understood that as an actual, like, not like kind of fuck you facial feature. You know what I mean?
00:35:00
Speaker
Like when i when I think of V for Vendetta, like there's something about that facial hair that makes me think like, hey, he's kind of thrown it in my face a little bit. You know what I mean? He's peacocky.
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. He's saying like, yeah, you see this shit on my face. I know it's there. Yeah. I chose this. I maintain this. yeah I shave this every fucking day.
00:35:21
Speaker
I make it look like this. yeah But the silhouette of his mellot definitely looks like he's doing like a Roseanne, Roseanne Adana, but starting below his ears. It's very weird.
00:35:32
Speaker
Good, good metaphor. Yeah. It's definitely hard for me to see either Nicolas Cage or Judge Reinhold as having any actual sex appeal in this film. Nope, nope. No, they're both sort of repulsively inhuman.
00:35:47
Speaker
Yeah. And kudos to Judge Reinhold showing his not very good butt in this movie. We see the Rein butt, yeah. where's There's a healthy amount. He has got a Hank Hill butt, the poor fella.
00:36:02
Speaker
And almost the judge, there's one scene where he kind of like contorts quickly. because you you The judge. yeah you almost see a de but You almost catch Hogg in this movie. He comes very close. Yeah.
00:36:18
Speaker
ah Okay, but now, Zandily doesn't care much for Johnny when they meet. But Johnny instantly, well, she's like, he's... No, no. Just just the idea that someone would meet this guy and be like, I like him.
00:36:32
Speaker
yeah No, if somebody likes Johnny at first glance, you probably don't want to know them either. Therein lies the problem, because, like, Erica Anderson's performance, like, her ability to convey turned on. It just makes, she she makes a face like she's sort of angry and smells something unpleasant. It it makes no sense.
00:36:57
Speaker
Well, she is also disgusted by Johnny. As she should be. He's gross. I think the filth is he's a part of the eroticism.
00:37:08
Speaker
um But Johnny, as soon as he sees Zandily, he instantly turns into the Terminator. But instead of Sarah Connor, he's hunting down Zandily's pussy.
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Fair. i I don't like to hear it, but it's the truth. So then we get a little backstory about Tyrion inherited his father's company. His father's dead. He used to do poetry. He doesn't do poetry anymore. Johnny works at the same company. Coincidentally, at some point we figure out it's a cable company and that Johnny is a cable guy.
00:37:47
Speaker
Johnny got him the job there. but Yeah. yeah ah So Johnny is a painter and Terry admires him for not giving up on art the way that he did on poetry.
00:38:00
Speaker
Johnny announces that he wants to paint Terry's portrait. And Terry, not sensing that this is a way for Johnny to stunt on him in front of his wife, agrees. The next day, Zandily goes to her job at a vintage clothing shop where her co-worker, Jerry, a trans woman played by Joey Pantoliano, tells her that she needs a breath of fresh air in this.
00:38:24
Speaker
I think he does a good job. Yeah. Yeah. The i like jerry's a character New York area, like character actors, like are so much better than the leads. Right. ah Yeah. Buscemi shows up and Aunt May.
00:38:39
Speaker
tell me yeah And they're all better than the leads in this movie. Yep. Agreed. Yeah. I mean, they're also asked to do a lot less. None of them have to do any bumping and grinding. Yeah. I also think that this film doesn't know how to write people. So the ones that are in it for the briefest amount of time probably come out the best.
00:39:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:03
Speaker
Now, yeah. yeah Joey Pantolano tells her that she needs to get laid. Zandalee comes home to find Johnny working on the portrait, a study in blues and greens and yellows.
00:39:15
Speaker
Later, Teary notices that Zandily has been reading one of his old poetry books, which just makes him feel like more of a loser.
00:39:25
Speaker
The next night, Jerry takes Zandily to either an intergender sex club or a strip club. It is. I'm not quite sure. All right, so this is, I'm not sure because I only went in there once. It's supposed to be Show Bar, which was a pretty notorious Bourbon Street strip club that I do not believe survived Katrina. I think it's been closed for now.
00:39:50
Speaker
most strip clubs are strip clubs. Showbar was famous for doing these kind of co-ed sex show kind of routines. It was notorious for being sleazy even by the standards of Bourbon Street. Okay. I mean, someplace has to be the bottom.
00:40:10
Speaker
it's It's weird to me that she's there. yep She needs to feel something. Yeah. But I mean, like who invited her? Is it, this is this, this is Jerry's thing. This is the ball that Jerry was talking about.
00:40:24
Speaker
Maybe not. Maybe it's just the place Jerry likes to go. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, the Sweethearts Bowl thing is introduced and dropped. I don't know that has no analog that I'm aware of, if that's like a gay ball or trans ball or just a party. i think when the cis lady comes in, she's like, oh, you're wearing that to the Sweethearts Bowl? I think it's just a regular thing. And Jerry's like, oh, if I have a fancy dress, I'll be able to go to the Sweethearts Bowl like all the cis people. Ah, I see.
00:40:52
Speaker
ah <unk>tatatater She French kisses a patron and then comes home ready for some loving from her loser husband.
00:41:04
Speaker
The two of them give it the old college try, but when Zandily gets on her hands and knees, Terry becomes overwhelmed with fear at the prospect of trying a second sexual position.
00:41:17
Speaker
yeah We have to be explorers, Zandily proclaims. um But then Terry explains that he is suffering from erectile dysfunction, describing himself as a paraplegic of the soul.
00:41:31
Speaker
yeah You know what's funny? is i know it's I did not catch that as being about erectile dysfunction in any way, shape or form. Oh, OK. I mean, I'm not surprised if that's what it was about. I found a lot of the dialogue to be obtuse and inscrutable, except for the sexual metaphors.
00:41:50
Speaker
But yeah, so this is where I think I want to introduce... So this movie doesn't have a ton of plot, right? No, no. It has a lot of scenes, but not a lot of plot. Yes. yeah We have to enter into the dialectic here. Please join me. Let's get Socratic.
00:42:07
Speaker
Okay, I love it. next Does this movie understand... sex and i mean like this is a literary adaptation right we're we're gonna talk this is supposedly an adaptation of emile zola's terrys rekin i wish my dog would be quiet now i'm sorry it's cool right there's a very literary tradition of men writing novels about their dicks not working right mean a you know ever
00:42:39
Speaker
and Oh, buddy. Dog.
00:42:45
Speaker
But the point is impotence is this big theme in this movie and it seems so fucking juvenile. And I guess we're all we're all grownups. Like there are other ways to have sex, but it's like why did they want to make this movie in which impotence is like the running a theme? Like I'm just baffled by it.
00:43:09
Speaker
Yep. Well, you know, impotence is obviously a metaphor for masculinity, you know, and a man and having a crisis of masculinity and as he enters his midlife. Maybe this something Judge Reinhold was grappling with.
00:43:23
Speaker
yeah Obviously, having passed the heady days of Beverly Hills Cop 3, has yet to find another, ah you know, we hit. When did Beverly Hills Cop 3 happen?
00:43:37
Speaker
I feel like it had to be after 91. Well, then, Judge, maybe your best times are still ahead. Maybe you don't need to be making this movie, brother. ah Let's see.
00:43:49
Speaker
Where was I? Oh, yes. They have to be explorers. He is a paraplegic of the soul. Zandily then starts jacking off, which really freaks him out until he gets distracted by a chameleon.
00:44:06
Speaker
And he says, chameleon. And then he picks it up and he lets it out the outdoors. And then we cut to the next day. so No, it's an anal.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So the next night, Johnny finishes the portrait of Teary. We never get a good clear shot of it, which is unfortunate. I would have liked to be able to take in the painting that we've been talking about for the last 20 minutes.
00:44:34
Speaker
Terry seems to the only one who likes it. Mom and Zandali are both like, hmm, I think you made him probably look like kind of a pussy. ah And there's a great line in this scene where where Cage describes his art and says,
00:44:50
Speaker
I think it's impossible today to record anything as a fact without doing some injury to the image, which gives you yeah amazing a amazing dialogue in this movie.
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Some real inhuman stuff that if you're going to write stuff that sounds inhuman, it should also sound good. And sometimes it sounds good, but a lot of it does not.
00:45:11
Speaker
No. I was wondering, Anna, Are any of these insane lines like direct quotes from the novel? Yeah, I'm curious about this. um Not really. i don't I don't think so.
00:45:30
Speaker
And it might also depend on your translation, but probably. Yeah, yeah. And i didn't like yeah I didn't read it in French, but not really. The book is much more straightforwardly readable, actually, than the dialogue in this movie.
00:45:47
Speaker
And it was written by a woman, Mary Kornhauser? Yeah, it's an interesting last name. I'm not familiar with, but that is, you know...
00:46:01
Speaker
an interesting detail. She also wrote two episodes of Treme. So I guess she loves knowledge. No, that's one of the things, one of the like dialectics, I think you've got to think about this. Is this an American movie or like a foreign film? This feels like an American attempt to make a foreign film. And that name kind of sounds like, like a European, like this is,
00:46:23
Speaker
After having covered, you know, a couple of American adaptations of French source material, this does feel sort of akin to yeah My Father ah the Hero or ah Mixed Nuts.
00:46:36
Speaker
A bigger trend than I realized, just I've noticed this from from listening to your podcast. yeah This was a big thing in the 80s and early ninety s Yeah, I would guess. And it seems like it missed as often as it hit.
00:46:49
Speaker
More so. Let's see. Yeah. So ah Terry, he rushes off to hang the portrait. Johnny, now left alone with Zandily, French kisses her. At first, she tries to pull away, but by the end, she's not nod into it.
00:47:05
Speaker
So the next day, Zandily's out for a jog. She does a lot of jogging in this movie. you Almost entirely because it puts her in a tank top and little shorts. um But while she's out, she runs into Johnny again.
00:47:19
Speaker
And he tells her, I want to shake you naked and eat you alive, Zandalee. That's in my notes as well. It's a great it's in my notes as well. Powerful line.
00:47:32
Speaker
She's pretty into that idea. So they start fucking out there on the street before we cross to them fucking back at his house. They do a lot of fucking in two locations in this movie. Very transitory. lot of transitory fucking.
00:47:49
Speaker
What I've unfortunately found, the one thing in the Wikipedia article about this is that she was not comfortable with these sex scenes, which is unfortunate. And she doesn't do well. She is not served well by this movie in any way. is enough We should acknowledge that. Mm-hmm.
00:48:04
Speaker
No, this movie is a big ask and it seems, uh, anyway, uh, anyway, they're fucking at his house and then they hang out and then he takes some paint on his finger and he smears it on her boob. Something that I told Anna was definitely going to happen 20 minutes earlier.
00:48:26
Speaker
and Nice. good call as it was as soon as he said he was a painter. Yeah. That is a classic Skinamax move. Wasting oil paint like that, man. That shit's expensive.
00:48:39
Speaker
Hey, if you think that's a waste, you and me are different. Now, ah he then, he gets a phone call that leaves a message on his machine about owing somebody money.
00:48:52
Speaker
That night when Zandley comes home, Zandley's mother-in-law tells her that she has a lover. And Zandley asks her to invite him over for dinner. Love that response.
00:49:03
Speaker
They're like, yeah I have a lover. Which is like, well, you better come over for dinner then. and yeah This is a very European way of handling Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm having dinner tonight with my lover's my mother's lover.
00:49:18
Speaker
Yeah. That's indeed what Terry says to Johnny when he runs into him at a nearby dive bar. And then he invites Johnny to come too. And then Johnny brings... Yeah.
00:49:30
Speaker
yeah All we need is a vicar and we'll have ah everything we need for a first. And ah Aaron Neville, famous New Orleans musician, is the bartender. The other person who sounds like he's from New Orleans because he... Okay.
00:49:43
Speaker
That makes sense. He seemed specific enough to be in that sort of situation. The Neville of the nubble family are like all famous New Orleans musicians, but Aaron actually is...
00:49:56
Speaker
sort of the face of the organization. all right. Makes sense. Can I just add one more rolling back to that sex scene? This is where my notes have a all caps, all caps line that says a bizarre and juvenile attitude towards sex. Yeah.
00:50:13
Speaker
Yeah. It's very, it's very performative. It's very cinematic. Let's say this does not seem like anything anybody does in real life.
00:50:23
Speaker
So now ah Johnny brings along a dignitized Marissa Tomei as his date to dinner. She has one scene where she gets to make goo goo eyes at Johnny to hint home that people really do like whatever it is that he's doing.
00:50:38
Speaker
And there's talk around the table of love and honor and passion. And Terry raises a glass to the man that's fucking his mother. eat Oh, the lover, the other Twin Peaks alum is Ian Abercrombie, who's the... Oh, yes. I knew I recognized him from something. Yep. Well, he's also from Army of Darkness, which would have been shot right about this time. And in Twin Peaks, he's the guy who gives Shelley and Bobby the check for for Leo. That turns out to be vastly inadequate. He's the sort of mealy-mouthed insurance guy.
00:51:11
Speaker
okay. So Johnny and Zandley, they clear the table, and then they sneak off to go fuck in the laundry room. At this point, Terry's starting to get suspicious.
00:51:23
Speaker
Okay. Is This is one of those things, right? I think that's the scene where we're supposed to read him as having caught on. So that's what I thought too. But then later he's like, I think she's having an affair. could be with anyone, maybe even you. And I don't know if that was his like way of him implying that it, that he knew it was him or if he was in the dark, this movie is a little hard to read.
00:51:46
Speaker
I think that's the sort of literary thing. I feel like that's the way that I think he knows there, but like they're not going to spell it out because they're alluding to the sort of novelistic origins. That's what I think.
00:52:01
Speaker
I read it as him thinking that something, it was strange that the two of them were away from the table for too long, but he is a man that purposely avoids thinking about strange things because he doesn't want to know that his marriage is collapsing because he can't fuck his wife.
00:52:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's the one. But the thing is, like, again, so this is a French novel from a period where people lived in, like, manor houses and things. You can't in an apartment, in a French Quarter apartment. I've been in them. They're not that big. You can't sneak off to another room and screw. It's like a, you know, a one bedroom. Especially not the way that Johnny screws.
00:52:37
Speaker
Yeah. Indeed. Okay, but we really got to press on. I got a lot of plot here. All right. The next day, Zandily goes for a jog and runs into Johnny again. He starts fingering her in the alley before fucking her back at his place.
00:52:50
Speaker
She refuses to call him Johnny and keeps on calling him Teary. He tells her that she needs to relax and then rolls her over her stomach before whipping together some cocaine-infused olive oil and finger-blasting her butthole with it.
00:53:05
Speaker
That's such a weird... Such a weird moment. And she's like, I don't do drugs. It's like, it's not drugs. It's like, but it is though, isn't it? And I'm pretty sure if you put cocaine in your butt, you're still doing drugs.
00:53:17
Speaker
I would call it cocaine. Cocaine chemically, like it's an anesthetic. Like cocaine is lidocaine. It's the same. You have to sort it if you want the drug effects. oh So yeah, I guess i it on my genitals.
00:53:30
Speaker
Well, they seem to have really like it. That's one of the ways this is such an 80s movie. Like, piles of cocaine to indicate you're dissolute, you know, is such an ease and So, Zandily comes home, unable to walk straight, only to find Teary passed out, surrounded by new, unfinished poems.
00:53:51
Speaker
The next day, Zandily sneaks out of work for some afternoon delight, and for once is not accosted and finger-banged by Johnny on a quiet side street.
00:54:03
Speaker
She goes to his place and starts digging through his drawers, presumably looking for more cocaine to push up her butthole. She can't find it, and some other lady keeps leaving messages for Johnny on his machine, so she freaks out and wrecks the place.
00:54:18
Speaker
Meanwhile, Thierry loses his job at his dead father's cable company.
00:54:25
Speaker
Zandily then runs into Johnny at a church, and they fuck in a confessional. She seems less into it now, so well when she goes home and her mother-in-law and encourages her to talk to Terry, she's game.
00:54:39
Speaker
She finds him sitting in the dark, drunk and alone. He doesn't seem ready to face what's going on and talk about it, but he does agree to Zandley's idea of getting out of town and starting fresh.
00:54:52
Speaker
The next day, an art dealer, played by Zach Galligan, runs into Johnny on the street and gives him his card. Doesn't this feel like like there was more here? This is somewhere where it feels like Zach Galligan had a purpose in this plot and it got cut out because he's he's doing that. Yeah, here his character is meaningless in this.
00:55:12
Speaker
ah Later, Johnny runs into Terry at the dive bar and he tells him, Terry tells Johnny, that is, that he knows Zandily has been stepping out.
00:55:23
Speaker
And so the two of them are going on a vacation in the bayou Johnny asks if he knows who has been cuckolding him, and Teary responds, For all I know, it could be you.
00:55:37
Speaker
to totally read this as him knowing. Yeah. Yeah. I think he's he's no fool, old Teary. Soon, Zandalee and Teary are motorboating around the bayou.
00:55:51
Speaker
They seem to be reconnecting. They're even able to have sex, though it does lack the animal passion that Zandily has grown accustomed to. it at least does involve two locations, the beach and their bed. And a boner.
00:56:04
Speaker
Yeah, and he does pop a bone. The next day, they motorboat out to the old bait shop to pick up a sixer of beer. And you'll never guess who they run into. Why it's old Johnny.
00:56:16
Speaker
How about that? actual pigon The guy, they found a real Cajun to do be the bartender because that's a real Cajun accent. Nice. Okay. Good to know. Glad they were able to cast a local.
00:56:29
Speaker
Johnny and Terry briefly dance together to some what I believe was Zydeco music and before Terry starts waving a gun around for a minute with no clear intention and then invites Johnny to go fishing with them.
00:56:44
Speaker
It's all normal stuff. Johnny's into it. The dance scene is a lot of fun. And that's where I think like, I think like Reinhold and Cage must like, like each other. I think they have some sort of relationship because it seems like in a movie where Reinhold is really out of his depths, they're having fun there. Or they're doing this very stylized, somewhat combative waltz.
00:57:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think it it He might be more comfortable as a dance man than he is as, you know, this sort of heavy, dramatic role. I think it suits him a lot better.
00:57:20
Speaker
So the three of them go fishing. They're motoring around the bayou. Johnny takes the wheel of the boat and Terry starts firing his gun around once again, without any any sort of clear intention.
00:57:35
Speaker
Now, sorry, I'm just going to say here that Terry does make two literary references that very clearly indicate he thinks they've taken him on the boat to kill him.
00:57:46
Speaker
He's yelling, Mr. Christian, which is a reference to Mutiny on the Bounty. And then he says, who would have thought the old man would have had so much blood in him, which is from Macbeth. Yeah. They're both about, you know, betrayal, death. Like, he thinks, yeah, he thinks as soon as Johnny shows up, I think he thinks he's kaput.
00:58:08
Speaker
But he has passed caring. And they're not just murderers, they're also traitors. you know Yeah, exactly. He's talking to betrayal.
00:58:18
Speaker
ah but but but but but but So all these sort of boat shenanigans cause Tiri to fall off and quickly sink below the surface of the bayou. Zandily goes to... We got a really good Zandily. We get a really good Erica Anderson line of, he's caught in the hyacinths, which not soil plants, right? Hyacinths are like flowering shrubs. Yeah. Well, maybe they're not in their flowering season.
00:58:47
Speaker
Uh... In any case, he's caught in something and he starts to sink below the surface. Xandily dives out of the boat to rescue him. And then Johnny dives out of the boat to rescue the both of them.
00:58:59
Speaker
Pulls Xandily to safety. But when he tries to save Terry, Terry rebukes this ultimate form of cuckolding, which is of course, having another man save your life in front of your wife and instead bites Johnny on the neck.
00:59:15
Speaker
Johnny is forced to drop Terry into the murky depths where Terry dies.
00:59:22
Speaker
R.I.P. Our bayous are very shallow. That's why there are those plants, right? You certainly can drown, but you kind of got to be dedicated to it. I think Terry's dedicated to drowning in this scene. That's how I read it.
00:59:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. yeah yeah but This is suicide, I think. Yeah. Very poor suicide. Not how I would do it.
00:59:44
Speaker
and So the next thing we know, Zandalee is standing next to Tyrius Grave talking to her garbage man, Steve Buscemi, who has been popping up now again in the movie.
00:59:56
Speaker
She's in rough shape. For his part, Johnny isn't doing well either. His painting is not going well. His cocaine distributor is calling about outstanding invoices.
01:00:08
Speaker
Zach Galgan shows up and he likes his older paintings better and he doesn't want to buy any of his new stuff. In response to all these stresses, Johnny starts screaming and covering his body in black paint in a way that only Nicolas Cage could do.
01:00:22
Speaker
This, of course, yeah being the scene that I saw and the scene that everyone mentioned. It's very wild. Yeah. He goes big. Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't hold back. Classic. He's like screaming like, black it all out, black it all out, black it all out, which is really great.
01:00:41
Speaker
Zandily then goes for a jog. This lady loves going for a jog. frustrated. When she gets home, Johnny is there. They try making love, but she calls him teary again and it ruins the mood.
01:00:54
Speaker
And he's impotent now. Oh, and Johnny is now impotent. Right, yeah. Now who's the teary? Yeah, exactly. It's like it follows, but for a erectile. or juvenile like i Zandily puts on her dead husband's shirt and goes for a walk.
01:01:16
Speaker
Johnny follows her, but then they both get spotted by Johnny's cocaine distributor who shoots Zandily dead. Johnny picks up her corpse and carries it somewhere.
01:01:30
Speaker
and the camera tilts up to the blue null in sky. The end. Question, do you think that the drug dealer wanted to shoot her, do you think she jumped in front of the bullet? She jumped in front of the bullet.
01:01:43
Speaker
and think They were standing side by side. So when I saw everything leading up to the shot, I was like, oh, she's jumping in front of the bullet. And then it happened, and I was like, actually, I don't know what happened there. But when I read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia, they said that she jumps in to save him.
01:02:04
Speaker
i I didn't read it that way. I find it to be hard to read, like a lot of this film. Yeah. It's not very well directed. No, it's not. Or I think also edited. I think the editing might be a problem.
01:02:19
Speaker
Yeah. I think there's a lot of problems with this movie. Yeah, I read it as ah the drug dealer or distributor shooting her and saying, you know, you got get your money up the supply chain or whatever it was that he said, yeah because he knows he's not going to get his money if Johnny's dead. Yeah. So he shoots the gal instead. I could read it either way, frankly.
01:02:40
Speaker
At that point, I really didn't care. that Yeah, I was happy it was stopping because it felt like it should have stopped six or seven other times before that. Let's get to final thoughts. Five star ratings.
01:02:50
Speaker
Greg, why don't you kick us off in terms of watchability and weirdness. Where did you land? Okay, so this is ah this is a strange little picture. um I feel like this movie... ah So the movie that I kept thinking of when I watched this movie was Crash by David Cronenberg.
01:03:09
Speaker
Because in Crash, he said that he was trying to make... He said that in all movies, sex scenes are superfluous because they're never moving the plot forward. So he wanted to make a movie in which the sex scenes were the plot.
01:03:22
Speaker
And I feel like this movie is trying to do that in a way. But I think that what it is is what David Cronenberg did with Crash. And I think what David Cronenberg and maybe a few other directors do is they take very heightened situations and sex is added to them. And that's the way that you and now granted Crash is an adaptation of a book.
01:03:42
Speaker
So he didn't insert it, but I think it's his general M.O. and what he was doing with Crash was the idea that sex is kind of the way that you as an audience member are entering this weird world. It's not meant to heighten it. It's meant to kind of ground it so that you can enter it and understand what they're talking about.
01:04:01
Speaker
Whereas this movie is using sex as a way to heighten situations. And it felt a lot closer to like a Tinto Brass movie. So the way that I'm comparing these two things is it's like in David k Cronenberg and Crash, it's like, why are they rubbing cars together on the highway at 75 miles an hour? It's because they find that sexual. And that's where we come into it is that is a form of sexual release. And so we understand sexual desire, which makes us understand their desire to rub cars together. And that makes us feel weird.
01:04:35
Speaker
And that's the point of that. That's the point of what we're doing there. Whereas in this movie, it's like, why are they fingering each other? It's like, because they need to talk. And it's like, it takes, so takes sex. And it's like, so we're going to do that to do something normal. It's like, why didn't the whole, I don't know what this movie is trying to say or do in everybody. Like, I know that it's a, an adaptation of a play and I've read the end of the play and the the ending makes more sense to me because it feels like people making a choice.
01:05:06
Speaker
Whereas here it's, it just felt like the entire time was like, I think Zondali wants to kill herself because she keeps like jumping in front of cars and trains. I think here he wants to kill himself because he like puts a gun up to his head at one point.
01:05:20
Speaker
It seems like everybody wants to do something. And the only one willing to actually do anything is Nicolas Cage. And that's because he wants to fuck, but I think he wants to fuck because he doesn't want to think about all the other stuff he should be doing.
01:05:31
Speaker
And so it's just a lot of nothing happening. And it's weird, and it's very weird sexually. It's very strange. And ah i think that Nicolas Cage's performance in it is absolutely worth the price of admission if you're the sort of person who can withstand all of this. Uh-huh. I would say that as far as watchability goes, it's a two. Okay.
01:05:55
Speaker
But yeah you if you... this is This is definitely a movie that some people should check out just for Nicolas Cage's performance. And also I think it's interesting to watch a bad movie and recognize why it is bad and be like, wow, how did you do this?
01:06:10
Speaker
And the nice thing is that at least throughout as you're watching this, you're getting Nicolas Cage going crazy. So yeah I think he gives it up to a two, but everything else is pretty unwatchable. It's pretty wild. And then that in a way is at least interesting. And I don't think it's very weird, but it's kind of weird. So I'm going to go one and a half.
01:06:28
Speaker
That all seems very reasonable. What about you, Anna? I would. Yeah, I would put this about at about a three ah for watchability, but in like classic bad movie style. I feel like this is a movie that if you watched it like...
01:06:46
Speaker
re times with the same group of people, you and that group of people would recite lines from it to each other i ever like the rest of your friendship. like It's very much that kind of movie and very much as that kind of just like overwrought, baffling dialogue. yeah yeah like you do you know There is, like I said, a lot ah enough nudity that it it it does get to be a little much more Uh, I do feel i did feel kind of bad for the female lead. Yeah. um
01:07:23
Speaker
But I did. Yeah, I enjoyed watching it. i do think that ah also it's not very weird. I'll give it a two in weird. Fair enough. I, ah found it, uh, I gave it a three and a half for watchability. And we always say that it's good when a bad movie keeps finding new ways to be bad as it goes. But this one is pretty much bad the same way the whole way through. Yeah, it is always just sort of Nicholas Cage going crazy and judge Reinhold looking kind of like a doofus wearing his dad's clothes and ah Erica Anderson being hot and nude. And, ah
01:07:59
Speaker
But that said, yeah, Cage does go nuts. Reinhold looks like a total dweeb. And Anderson is frequently a beautiful nude woman. So it does have its charms in terms of watchability. And I think Cage heads will be feasting. For weirdness, I'll give it to three. Cage's gonzo performance is obviously the weirdest thing about it. But it's not anything weirder than anything that you've seen him do in a lot of other places. It's just also very much hornier.
01:08:24
Speaker
Like, I think this is probably the most explicit Nicolas Cage movie I can think of. ah Leaving Las Vegas is pretty explicit. Yeah, I'd be leaving Las Vegas up there. That has more of a groundedness to it because it feels like an actual real drama. So it's like it makes some sense. Whereas this, it's like, why are we doing that?
01:08:43
Speaker
Yeah, this is more porno horniness. What about you, Mac? Where did you land in terms of watchability and weirdness on your five-star rating? So the watchability is not high and I had not watched this in a long time. And obviously if you go a long time without watching this, the sort of dull stuff will recede. And you're just going to remember those peaks of, of peak Nick cage, you know, tearing off his purple laser or pair covering himself in paint being just utterly repellent and, and dick motizing, uh, Zandalee.
01:09:19
Speaker
So, uh, Yeah, the sort of middle third or the like third of third quarter of the movie is kind of dull because the you know it's just sex scenes and the sex scenes are weird, but they're certainly not enjoyable or titillating.
01:09:38
Speaker
But ah what I do like about this movie is that ah So you guys probably know the flop house, which is a, a long established bad movie flop, a bad movie podcast.
01:09:51
Speaker
I forget one of, i forget who it is, but one of those guys said a good movie and a bad movie are the same because they're going to keep making choices that surprise you. Yep. This movie keeps making choices that baffle me.
01:10:05
Speaker
Yeah. yeah This movie keeps confusing me from the very basic point of like, well, Why are you making this movie? And, you know, Reinhold's production credit, I think, is part of it, right? This is him trying to be a real actor, not a light comic actor. But I just I cannot figure out.
01:10:26
Speaker
why this movie was made. and so the weirdness, I'm going to pop up a little higher just because it just leaves you scratching your head so profoundly. So maybe two for watchability, four for weirdness, maybe. Those seem like very reasonable scores. yeah but We have got to press on and I'm very excited to press on because my wife is going to be reading, or should I say leading our next segment because they read a book.
01:11:15
Speaker
I read a book once, it related to this movie It had lot of pages, but it was pretty groovy There's more than one source of information If you care to take a look And if you need resource, then you can be like Because I read a book Because I read a book
01:11:51
Speaker
So as we've been alluding to, this movie was loosely based on Emile Zola's 1867 novel, Thérèse Réquin, which it was his third novel, the one that made him famous.
01:12:08
Speaker
Part of that was that it was very scandalous at the time. a reviewer for Le Figaro famously called it putrid literature, which he actually used in his preface to the second edition.
01:12:21
Speaker
so So, you know, he knew what he had here. ah I would say the biggest difference, and like you said, Mac, it a very similar plot to The Postman Always Rings Twice or Double Indemnity. Therese Raken is married to her wife.
01:12:42
Speaker
is married to her weak, pitiful cousin Camille, um, after being raised by Camille's mother, Madame Rakan, after, uh...
01:12:59
Speaker
after her father, her father was a soldier. Her mother is Algerian. So she's got that, uh, half native thing going on that you never like in a, um, European 19th century novel. Oh, exotic.
01:13:15
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, but so Madame Racken, you know, brings them both up. She wants them to get married. She, you know, persuades them to get married. And, uh,
01:13:27
Speaker
You know, it's it's it's not a happy marriage. ah And when Camille runs into his childhood friend Laurent at the the firm where they were both work, again, like you see, these these parts of Zandalee do come from the novel. um he He does bring him home, you know, um to move to see his mother and his wife and...
01:13:59
Speaker
i Laurent is like, yeah, I'm a painter and I'd love to paint you. um And then he and Therese become lovers.
01:14:11
Speaker
ah There is, honestly, honestly you is pretty shocking. I think there's what, what ah the book has instead of explicit sex scenes is like, is, is interior monologue of like, you know, know,
01:14:29
Speaker
their rationalizations for adultery and eventually for murder um because they do, they do kill Camille a third of the way into the book.
01:14:43
Speaker
why So this I think is why judge Reinhold's character feels so weird in this is because he's not very important At all. No, he's not.
01:14:58
Speaker
and his role is is blown up so much and even given you know his death is so complicated it's much simpler in the book um you know Laurent throws him into the water.
01:15:12
Speaker
ah Laurent is also, he's ah he's ah a peasant's son, and he's described as like a real reacher type, like big old thick neck and giant, you know, hands the size of hams and, you know, really hairy guy. And, you know, Therese just thinks it's really hot. Yeah.
01:15:36
Speaker
Yeah, okay, so it is it is explicitly murder a third of the way through the book, but then... ah Therese and Laurent are so wracked by guilt, even after, you know, two years after the the murder, they get married.
01:15:55
Speaker
But, you know, they they they eventually grow to hate each other. yeah and ah by the end, they've decided that they're going to kill each other.
01:16:06
Speaker
um But at the very last minute, they each like they each he sees, you know, the knife that she's hiding, trying to hide. and she sees the jar of poison that he's just emptied into their drink. And, you know, they have a moment together and they cry.
01:16:24
Speaker
and then they, ah you know, both take the poison together and die. So so that's how that movie. That's how that book ends. onhenic and Stronger It is a stronger ending. I do think it is...
01:16:40
Speaker
ah the book is what is closer to being like a cheap erotic thriller than, than you might think, you know, from it being a ah literary classic, that you know, it is kind of scandalous and, and tawdry.
01:16:58
Speaker
um But I, I don't know, in, in my opinion, i felt felt like his commitment to naturalism like, is just not as strong as his desire to punish his characters for adultery and murder.
01:17:14
Speaker
um And so we get, so there's some some scenes later on, like I was telling Chris about this, ah after the murder, Lorentz has artistic talent for the first time.
01:17:31
Speaker
He can, he can, he's a wonderful painter now, but he can only paint the face of the dead man. oh no matter how hard he tries. That's great. Very, very funny to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's great. But it's not like realistic, you know? oh Um,
01:17:51
Speaker
But i think I think the biggest disconnect between the novel and Zandalee and basically between the 1860s and modern things is i we are supposed to sympathize with lovers in Zandalee, I think. Are we? In most modern things. Well... I don't know how sympathetic I'm supposed to feel about Johnny.
01:18:18
Speaker
I don't know. Maybe not Johnny. Reptile. i't want how I just don't know if the movie wants me to think about any of them. Right. Well, let me tell you what Zola thought of them. Sure.
01:18:33
Speaker
Um... I chose, he says, to portray individuals existing under the sovereign dominion of their nerves and their blood, devoid of free will and drawn into every act of their lives by the inescapable promptings of their flesh.
01:18:51
Speaker
Therese and Laurent are human animals, nothing more. In these animals, I set out to trace step by step the hidden workings of the passions, the urges of instinct, and the derangements of the brain, which follow on from a nervous crisis.
01:19:07
Speaker
Love for my two heroes is the satisfaction of a physical need. The murder they commit is a consequence of their adultery, a consequence they accept as wolves except the slaughter of sheep.
01:19:19
Speaker
In a word, I had only one aim, which was, given a powerful man and an unsatisfied woman, to seek within them the animal, and even to see in them only the animal, to plunge them together into a violent drama, and then take scrupulous note of their sensations and their actions.
01:19:39
Speaker
I simply carried out on two living bodies the same analytical examination that surgeons perform on corpses. Okay. Real weird. and natural Real weird attitude, dude. So oddly enough, this only makes it connect more to the book Crash. um because So there's a quote that I know from Ballard that I didn't know was from Ballard until later where he's talking about Crash where he said ah he wanted to take society and rub its face in its own vomit.
01:20:11
Speaker
And I feel like both of these statements kind of fit together in a way. I think that was a very like Zola thing. Yeah. I don't know. This is the first novel of his I've read. It was pretty good. It was pretty good. Okay. All right. Well, we got to press on, on to our game. It's time to play. Guess the title.
01:20:42
Speaker
Let me tell you about this brand new game, where you guess the movie's name. You just tell me what the title is, prove you know about showbiz.
01:20:57
Speaker
Guess the title. Whipper, whipper, whipper, whipper. Guess the title. Gooby, gooby, gooby, gooby. Guess the title. Guess the title.
01:21:08
Speaker
Come on, honey. Guess the title. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:21:15
Speaker
Ooh, whoa, whoa.
01:21:19
Speaker
so we're going to be playing Guess the Title with the films of Judge Reinhold, the classic comedic supporting actor. You might know him from Stripes, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Beverly Hills Cop, or my personal favorite, Vice Versa.
01:21:34
Speaker
But none of those movies are being on our quiz today. What I'm going to do is I'm going to read you a brief description of a Judge Reinhold film, and i'm gonna read you three titles. want you to buzz in and guess which one is the real title.
01:21:48
Speaker
And if your opponents get it wrong, you'll have the chance to steal. And you'll buzz in by saying your own name. Is everybody ready? Yeah. Yeah. I think so. All right.
01:22:00
Speaker
Question number one. A philandering executive tries to juggle two wives and a mistress and finds himself suddenly being shadowed by some angry Russian holdouts from the Cold War.
01:22:14
Speaker
Is this international affairs? Near misses, spelled M-R-S, period. Or love and other deadly weapons?
01:22:26
Speaker
Greg. Greg? Near misses.
01:22:32
Speaker
You're correct. Wow. That's a great title. It is.
Humorous Movie Plots Discussion
01:22:39
Speaker
Question number two. Ping is a chihuahua rescued from the local pound. I'm already excited. By nearsighted Ethel, who thinks he's a cat.
01:22:51
Speaker
I was even more excited. I love nearsighted Ethel. When a pair of bumbling thieves break into Ethel's house to rob her, only Ping can stop them. Is this guard Chihuahua, little menace, or ping?
01:23:09
Speaker
Anna. Anna? Ping! You're correct, my dove. Wow. Nice.
01:23:19
Speaker
Question number three. jumping quickly enough. but Sometimes the lag can be tough. and It definitely can end. Now I'm hesitating. Oh, no, no. Yeah. You just got to die with your guts.
01:23:32
Speaker
Whichever title you remember, that's probably your best guess. good and Question number three. A policeman named Jack Wild must rescue his girlfriend and a trainload of other hostages from vicious criminals in a mountain tunnel hideout.
01:23:50
Speaker
Wow. Is this Get Wild, All Aboard, Cracker 2? Greg.
01:24:01
Speaker
greg Mac? Cracker Jack 2.
01:24:08
Speaker
Correct. It's all tied up. I knew there was a three-step the Cracker Jack bone. it was also known as hostage train. If anybody yelled out hostage train, I would have given you the point.
01:24:20
Speaker
Question number four. A divorced doctor finds himself in real trouble living with his daughter alone now. But fortunately, a guardian angel is watching over both of them.
01:24:34
Speaker
Is this dad, the angel, and me? Heavens above? or what about mom? Greg. Greg? Heavens above.
01:24:50
Speaker
What? o ma sorry backmack Mac. Mac, Mac? and The first one, was it dad, the angel, in me? Or God, the angel, It was dad, the angel, and me.
01:25:03
Speaker
you're correct Question number five. A wife surprises her cop husband in bed with her little sister. In the ensuing struggle, the wife is killed.
01:25:16
Speaker
hello Can they keep it a secret? Is that Enid is sleeping? Sex crime? Or cop stuff?
01:25:29
Speaker
Greg. Greg? Sex crime.
01:25:35
Speaker
No, I'm sorry, Greg. It wasn't sex crime. Anna. Anna? Enid is sleeping. Correct. This one was also known as Over Her Dead Body, if anyone had guessed Over Her Dead Body.
01:25:51
Speaker
I really hope one of us does say an alternate title one of these days. Poor Chad just certainly entered the ah the alternate title phase of his career. yeah Question number six.
01:26:06
Speaker
Petey works at L.A. Harbor and runs criminal activities there, too. When his honest cop brother is killed by dirty cops, Petey goes after them with the help of an investigative reporter.
01:26:20
Speaker
Is that the foreman, the wharf rat, or forever cool? Mac. Mac? Forever cool. Yeah.
01:26:35
Speaker
Oh, it should have been called forever cool. Greg. and the i called but Greg. greg War frat. You're correct. It's tied up again. Wow. Real, real tense stuff this week. You must be on the edge of your seat.
01:26:54
Speaker
Question number seven. Three people find themselves trapped inside a speeding car when its brakes stop working. I don't It's like speed in a car.
01:27:06
Speaker
if if feel don Is it speed three too fast or runaway car? Anna, Anna too fast.
01:27:24
Speaker
No, it was too fast, but it wasn't called too fast. s back Mac. It's gotta be runaway car. It is Runaway Car. Wow. It was initially pitched as a sequel to Speed, but was considered too boring. um Yeah, even you can't go back from a bus to a car. Yeah. yeah The brakes don't work.
01:27:48
Speaker
Well, have you tried the emergency brake? No. Okay. want you to your foot off the gas. Question number eight. a special cyber crimes unit of the FBI takes on a tech CEO with plans of world domination.
01:28:07
Speaker
Is this net force, cyber cops, or electronic clues?
01:28:18
Speaker
back next What was the first one? Tech force. I believe net force, net force. Sorry. You're correct. It was net force.
01:28:31
Speaker
Electronic clues. Yeah. i had I struggled with that one. I'll admit it. Question number nine.
01:28:40
Speaker
Being a teen is tough enough for Kathy without having to be the target of her little brother, George's constant practical jokes. Their parents leave them when they go to France and then George gets magically transformed into a pig.
01:28:56
Speaker
Oh, okay. Okay. Is this Lil Oinker, My Brother the Pig, or A Curly Tail?
01:29:09
Speaker
Greg. Greg? My Brother the Pig. You're correct. he Kathy was played by a young Scarlett Johansson.
The Batty Awards Celebration
01:29:20
Speaker
How about that? oh he's
01:29:24
Speaker
Congratulations, Mac. You're big winner this week. Good job. I'm a wiener. You've earned it, and listeners, update the wiki, and it's time for the Batty Awards.
01:29:44
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:29:55
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:30:01
Speaker
Congratulations to all the nominees!
01:30:09
Speaker
That's right, congratulations to all our nominees. It's the Batty Awards. Greg, tell me you got a Batty Award. I do. um I was hard pressed to find a piece of dialogue to give the Batty Award to, so I would just like to give my Batty Award to the dialogue as a whole.
01:30:26
Speaker
to To all of the viewers who have not seen the the dialogue is really bad. it is really blunt. It is all extremely quotable. I wanted to write down basically every line, but I did write down about seven and I'm going to read them to you now.
01:30:41
Speaker
And in no particular order. That's my list as well. Yeah, so we're going to see if we got anything doubling up here, but um let's see. ah Cage says, i like predictable tensions, which I think is really nice. ye ah Your arms are around me, but you're so far away.
01:30:59
Speaker
Jesus Christ, second thing on my list. I wantish i like Reinhold's response was just, sorry. Yep. ah I want to shake you naked and eat you alive was a good one. But he also did say in that same scene, you want it and I want to give it.
01:31:17
Speaker
So there's that. um He does put his hand inside of her vagina and says, what about this? Isn't this poetry? Which we referenced at the top of the show. He does ask Judge Reinhold, if you you want to share my peach. Isn't that funny? Yep.
01:31:38
Speaker
We don't know how to talk and we don't know how to fuck. Great line. Um, always tested all about their marriage and then my last one that I'm going to read, see all our parts work, which is really great.
01:31:54
Speaker
so that's off to you. Dialogue. You were a real winner this time around. How about you? And you got a batting award?
01:32:06
Speaker
Oh, um, snuck up on you this weekend. It kind of snuck up on me too. It's a weird one. Yeah. You know, I'm going to give it, I'm going to give it to the painting, the painting of Carrie.
01:32:20
Speaker
I liked it. I liked it. Yeah. you Yeah. It had very soulful eyes. I'm giving my baddie award, of course, to Mr. Steve Buscemi, who just shows up every 20 minutes to be like, hey, Zandily, it's me, a colorful character.
01:32:37
Speaker
Goodbye.
01:32:40
Speaker
And he gets the accent right. but But apparently he crushes the accent. What about you, Mac? You got a baddie award? so Unfortunately, Greg literally used almost compiled the same list as me. so But I still have one, my favorite, actually. oh Other than...
01:32:59
Speaker
Well, it's more the delivery, right? So i I chose many of the same lines as you. However, the best line in the movie to me is actually not one of these hilariously overwrought lines that Cage sells with his like,
01:33:15
Speaker
psychotic intensity it is when uh teary tells andley i can't give you absolution i'm not your confessor and then he gives his big-eyed sort of bobby from beverly hills cop look it's so perfectly incongruous e yeah but uh the dialogue is really something else i'm sorry my dog is whining again oh that's all right well Thank you so much for joining us this week,
Outro and Upcoming Topics
01:33:45
Speaker
Mac. Thank you listeners for tuning in. Mac, this was a great choice. I was really glad to see this little corner of Nicholas Cage's career that I had yet to visit.
01:33:55
Speaker
this Do you have anything going on? Do you have anything you want to plug? ah No. I mean, on Blue Sky, I'm the Aldo Kelrast who's not Josh Frulinger. Okay.
01:34:08
Speaker
but I don't have anything. i sort of decided that ah if I was going to come on this, I'd finish a story and try and get it out soon. But ah the first couple weeks of this year have made a concentration difficult. So ah I'll throw my support and respect out to the people of Minneapolis, you know, St. Paul in Minnesota. Yeah.
01:34:28
Speaker
You're on the front lines and God bless you. yeah Fingers crossed by the time this episode has come out. ah It has happened. Listeners, ah I'm just going to plug us real quick. Obviously, we'd love it if you gave us a follow. We'd love it if you gave us a five stars. well We'd love it if you shared us to your social media. We'd love it if you joined our Discord. We'd love it if you tracked us down on Instagram or Blue Sky.
01:34:54
Speaker
And we'd also love it if you checked out our new sub stack that just launched, where we're putting up ah our writings about bad movies. We watch so many bad movies in our lives and, you know, we can't talk about all of them on the show. So if you can get enough of us and you want to see us try our hand at the written word, it's in the link tree, which is in the show notes.
01:35:15
Speaker
Check it out. And don't forget to join us next week. when we will have returning guest Julie setting, and we're going to be talking about the super Mario brothers movie.
01:35:28
Speaker
Yay. How about that? I can't wait. That's a fascinating one. well Yeah. directors Bizarre directorial choice. Yes. I remember there being quite a few bizarre choices in that one. I'm excited to revisit it.
01:35:44
Speaker
So ah until next week, listeners be good and goodbye. Goodbye. Bye.
01:36:16
Speaker
Thank you.